Metaphor? The Jesus metaphor

So you thought metaphors were things your language teachers liked to add to their torture of literature for your benefit. The truth is, though: we think in metaphors. This literary phenomenon in which one thing (usually an abstract, sometimes unknown concept) is experienced in terms of another - something familiar which exhibits characteristics of the concept -  has throughout a number of decades gained recognition in the realm of cognitive psychology, where people with depression can, for instance, identify with a lump of coal. How big is the role that metaphors play in our mental life? And is there a basis to the claim that the metaphor of Christ is one of the most powerfully prevalent metaphors of all history?

In our everyday speech we use metaphors without being aware of them. We hear expressions such as "seeing through" someone, "planting a seed" of doubt, etc. But metaphor is not restricted to colouring our everyday language with their conscious use. Some writers speak of so-called "dead" metaphors as those that have passed from conscious use to being an integral part of language. These include metaphors like the "leg" of a table. In this way, metaphors enrich our language, by using a familiar object to name or describe an unfamiliar one by analogy. Speaking of a tables's "leg" seems much more apt than calling it a "support." People use 1.8 novel metaphors and 4.08 frozen ("dead") metaphors per minute of discourse. It seems, then, that without metaphor one would have to resort to pure abstraction which would only present a "Meccano copy" of the real world in our minds, instead of concrete, malleable images that we can stretch, roll into balls and tennis around while chatting.

Today we have sophisticated verbal metaphors which have remained in place for centuries, for instance "The pen is mightier than the sword." The power of this metaphor lies in the similarity in shape of the two objects, the pen and sword, as well as the total dissimilarity in their function (the dissemination of ideas vs. killing opponents) and comparison of their success in achieving their common purpose: conviction and conquest. The metaphor of Christ speaks to us today through the pen - metaphorically here the arts, specifically the modern films like The Matrix and Shawshank Redemption which go deeper than pure entertainment and have been vilified for their "Gnostic" messages by fearful Christian commentators such as the makers of the documentary Hollywood's War on God. 

Evolution of metaphor

How do metaphors come into being and what role do they play in cognition? The linguist Giambattista Vico saw poetic language as the original form of expression of humankind, emerging before conscious rationalism. The latter ushered in the growing powers of abstraction which resulted in the dwindling power of the imagination, which had expressed itself through myths and fables. The anthropologist Levi-Strauss came to the conclusion that myths are not "thought up" but are natural utterances of the human classification system of reality. Myths and fables can then be expressions of what Haskell refers to as "a common sense [which is] judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race," which express proverbs and folk wisdom with meanings common to all people.  

Primary process thinking and metaphor

Brain-damaged patients have an awareness of something which their brains should, technically, "ignore." This happens to patients who have been hypnotised against pain, for instance, but are yet aware of the pain through a "dissociated cognitive structure," the "hidden observer." This happens because of non-conscious processes in the brain which influence conscious cognitions and responses. 

The process of the transference of non-conscious cognition into conscious is found in the experience of the organic chemist Kekule who was struggling to discover the molecular structure of benzene. While wrestling with this problem, Kekule fell into an exhausted sleep in which he dreamed about dancers holding hands in a circle. When he awoke from the dream, he realised that the traditional metaphor of organic compounds as chains of atoms was insufficient to account for the structure of benzene and that a new metaphor, that of a ring structure, had to be used in this case.

Kekule's experience seems to be dramatic proof of metaphors as the only way in which to construct our realities: the chemist's deductive thinking had exhausted the old metaphor of molecular chains and a new metaphor had to be birthed via non-conscious processes, providing a whole new paradigm for hydrocarbon research. 

Going back further into the atom and theories of describing the atom, one finds an interesting shift of metaphors that seem to have exhausted themselves before deductive processes. The first encounter with the atom (from the Greek word atomos meaning "indivisible") that any science pupil has, is that of a little ball of matter forming itself into chains and clusters known as molecules. Later one learns about the Bohr model, analogous to a solar system: a central nucleus with orbiting electrons. Already in his time, however, Bohr knew that the atom was more complicated than this: some electrons describe a figure of eight instead of orbiting and, even more perplexing, an electron can be in more than one place at any given time! The list of paradoxes goes on: light is both wave and particle, Schroedinger's cat, to name a few.

Now, for these facts, nobody has found an adequate metaphor to explain them in terms of everyday experience. They are facts we have to accept because deductive reasoning from the observable facts "tells us so." This could lead to one questioning the nature of reality itself - that reality is beyond human comprehension unless one shifts the paradigm of thinking into the realm of the spiritual.

Metaphor and religion

Paradoxes such as the ones we find in quantum physics exist in the Christian doctrine as well. One learns that Jesus Christ is at once God and the Son of God, for instance. The writings of the prophets speak mostly about the coming of the Messiah (Christ) in the form of metaphors. Christ himself spoke in parables or metaphorical teachings. Many of his parables begin with "The Kingdom of God is like..." whereupon he proceeds to set up a kind of cognitive resonance in the minds of his listeners by juxtaposing his ideas with certain concrete elements: a hand to the plough, a mustard seed and a mountain, wolves and sheep. 

There is a tension between the "aesthetic" (the "entertaining" part) and "cognitive" role (the "lesson" that it wants to teach) of metaphor which gives the power to convey the truth. A good example of this is when the prophet Nathan confronted king David after the latter had sent Uriah to the front to be killed so that David could have the widow Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12). Nathan used a (at first glance) rather obscure parable told as a story to the king about an act of injustice. When David became enraged at the unscrupulous man in the parable, Nathan pointed out that he, King David was that man - to which David immediately repented brokenly. Had the prophet confronted the king directly on the matter, David could have denied his evil intentions quite comfortably. But Nathan's parable brought him face to face with his own conscience via a cunning metaphorical detour.

In the above parable, one can see what some call "Cognitive Mapping": the target (David's misdeed) is mapped onto the base (parable), the elements as close to a one-to-one correspondence as possible: David/the rich man; Uriah/the poor man; David's lust/the traveller; Bathsheba/the poor man's ewe lamb; David's wives/the rich man's sheep. Slaughtering the poor man's ewe lamb to feed the king's visitor would be what Freud would refer to as the "overdetermination" of the sign: it suggests simultaneously David's act of adultery with Bathsheba and (what amounts to) the murder of Uriah. 

Sacrifice and metaphor

Ritual sacrifice of animals and humans is a phenomenon that has been with mankind throughout the millennia. In most cases it is a way of appeasing a deity or deities for some real or possible wrongdoing or to gain favour from them. The Aztecs, over and above the ritual sacrifices of animals and very often of humans, had to let a drop of blood fall on the ground from their own bodies each day. Greek mythology tells us in Homer's Iliad that King Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter for favourable conditions for his navy to set sail for Troy. In Roman civilisation,  "Prayer was almost invariably accompanied by some form of offering or sacrifice. This did not necessarily involve the ritual slaughter of an animal, as long as the offering represented life in some form." (http://www.the-romans.co.uk/prayer.htm)

This bloodletting seems to be an ingrained, hard-wired part of the human religious experience and has only relatively recently become outmoded, mostly through the intervention of a more civilised set of values spread globally through the "Christian" values of European colonisers. 

Why did the concept of ritual sacrifice change through the coming of Christianity? If we examine both the Judaic roots of Christianity and the Roman roots of civilisation, we will see how the sacrifice of Christ on the cross negates the need for this practice. In Old Testament times the Israelite nation had to bring sacrifices before God as atonement for their sins. On the day of atonement (Lev. 16:20-22) the priest was given the command to take two goats and to confess the sins of the nation over their heads. Lots were drawn and one goat was slaughtered as atonement (foreshadowing the offering of Jesus on the cross) while the other was set free in the desert as symbol of man's freedom from sin and its resultant punishment. When Jesus Christ came to earth, he was said to be the only person without sin, spotless in the sight of God. He is also called the "Lamb of God," led to the slaughter as the Passover lamb of the Jewish festival is traditionally slaughtered. Even though he was totally blameless, he was the one who atoned for the sin of all humankind, a burden carried by the human race since the birth and fall of humankind - in Judeo-Christian mythology, the fall of Adam and Eve. Everyone who believes this and accepts the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is set free from sin, without the need for ritual sacrifice ever again. 

For this purpose, Jesus Christ left behind a powerful metaphor by which we can remember his sacrifice: wine representing the blood that he shed on the cross and broken bread for his body that was broken for all humankind. This symbolic act, the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine, is what reaches out to both "civilised" people and primitive African tribes who have been slaughtering an animals for ritual purposes; it is a metaphor that speaks to all of us. As C.S. Lewis put it; "It is only Xianity which compels a high brow like me to partake of a ritual blood feast, and also compels a central African convert to attempt an enlightened code of ethics."

This concept of sacrifice by proxy was eventually adopted by the Romans when Constantine made Christianity the state religion (something never intended by Christ) and became associated with "civilisation", which is an idea always associated with Rome. Therefore, blood and other sacrifices have come to be seen as "uncivilised," when in reality they are un-Christian (Rome was civilised and bloody before it became Christian), and have become outmoded in many parts of the world. 

Perhaps this is why the Christ metaphor resonates with something deep within us: throughout the ages the human race has had the need for redemption through sacrifice. The coming of Christ and his sacrifice on the cross has resonated throughout the world, whether we are aware of it or not. This is why this metaphor keeps surfacing in many contemporary films that go a bit deeper than you run-of-the-mill action or romance movie, ones that seek to answer, as the Wachowsky brothers (directors of The Matrix) put it, the "big questions." In many of these films we see one person sacrificing himself for the common good or for the redemption of humankind. We will examine some of these films in more depth in later posts.

Perhaps most appropriate for this study is the saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword." To the point here: it looks as though contemporary art (the pen) has succeeded where contemporary churches (the sword, which is trying to slay real and imagined opponents to doctrine) have failed in keeping the idea of Christ's redemption alive in a real way that contemporary audiences can relate to. We shall examine the power of this Idea (of Christ's redemption) in the post, "Indestructible ideas in V for Vendetta."